Posted on 04/21/2011 2:43:04 PM PDT by Borges
Lol!
Yep, I’m well red...with an occasional white. :P
Let’s see.
Shakespeare.
Romeo + Juliet, Midsummer’s Nights, Othello, Merchant of Venice, Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Henry V, Julius Caesar. I think that’s it.
Oh, and most of his poetry. His poetry is underrated.
Dickens:
A Christmas Carol, Tale of Two cities, David Copperfield and that’s it, all in the last year or so.
Twain,
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, both those books. And that’s it.
For me well read really means nothing, most of the folks who talk about it are ego stroking. At least some of the ones you list off I can respect.
You are absolutely right about Rowling’s plot holes.
In his review of Book 7 (Deathly Hallows), Christopher Hitchens sums it up well: “The repeated tactic of deus ex machina (without a deus) has a deplorable effect on both the plot and the dialogue.”
The Potter books are probably not great literature, but they are still a blast to read.
That's true, and they meant that they were read in the original Greek and Latin, respectively.
Also, your point about Rowling actually being today's Cervantes is a decent one. Rowling isn't anywhere close to being the greatest living writer, a honor that I believe would likely go to either McCarthy or Roth, I can't name a single good, let alone "great" novelist under the age of 60 - although I'm sure many would argue Jonathon Franzen is great.
In SF circles PKD is hugely regarded. He’s the first SF guy in the Library of America, got an award named after him, and he’s the most filmed guy in the genre (though most of the movies made from his stuff are crap). He might not be regarded at all by the literati, but none of the rest of SF is either. Which might explain why SF fans have such low regard for the literati, they hated us first.
All this and no Jack Vance?
... Perhaps there is a difference between being well read and reading well.
If the crap they made me read in High School was any example (”The Dollmaker”, “Siddhartha”...) They can keep it.
Now a little James Schmitz, or Heinlein, I can do with some of that.
:)
Let me guess: Nabakov's Pale Fire and Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury are NOT your favorite books...
Right on both counts.
What’s your favourite Heinlein book? We might as well talk about good literature rather then the list that Ebert spewed.
Do you consider Don Quixote to be a good book?
He laughed, and laughed, and laughed. Then his mouth fell off.
I enjoyed Don Quixote. I read a translation, of course, since I don’t read Spanish. But it was a fun book.
I regard Huck Finn as the greatest literary work that I have ever read. It made a huge impact on me.
I read Screwtape Letters (C.S. Lewis) every year or so.
Only one book has changed my life (The Bible).
Heinlein wise, I’d have to say that my favorites for “fun” were the series starting with “Number of the Beast”, but the original (non movie bastardized) Starship Troopers and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress are great stuff.
I suspect many here would agree.
Kipling anyone?
Patrick O’Brian for the great Aubrey-Maturin novels.
There are no bad stories in Dubliners. It’s a model of modernist short fiction. Ulysses demands multiple readings. Great writing usually does. When books are published in numerous editions and readily available they extend to more than just the Literati. It’s when they’re out of print or only available in University Press editions when you can make the claim.
Did you like Glory Road?
I liked the Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and ‘To Sail beyond the Sunset.”
The point being that you’ve read the writers he mentions.
What didn’t you like about Pale Fire? It’s drop dead brilliant.
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